


She Almost Got Away With It

by AmeliaPonders



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, because i freaking love fluff and write a lot of it, sorry I'm not sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-27
Updated: 2016-06-27
Packaged: 2018-07-18 15:05:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7320082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmeliaPonders/pseuds/AmeliaPonders
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor has some tedious TARDIS repairs to do, and the TARDIS isn't too happy about it, so she comes up with a plan to stop him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	She Almost Got Away With It

**Author's Note:**

> written for timepetalsprompt's weekly prompt: "It's really hot in here and you're really distracting."  
> My first timepetals fic! Yayyyy! Oh and I'm finally attempting to put things on tumblr. So check out ameliapondersfic.tumblr.com and say hey! And bear with me as I work on getting rid of the ugly default template and getting my page how I want it :)
> 
> BTW, the look of the Doctor's repair swing and his goggles are the ones the Eleventh Doctor uses in "The Doctor's Wife." I always thought they were really cool, so I let Tentoo have them also :-)
> 
> Unbeta'd so all mistakes are mine.

The Doctor was in his grungy “repair hammock-thing” as Rose called it, growing grumpier by the minute. Normally, he loved sitting in this quirky contraption; it was made of cables, an old harness, and a swing he may or may not have stolen from a playground in Ireland when he and Rose were on holiday a couple of years ago (and at the time he may or may not have overestimated his ability to metabolize alcohol in this new slightly human body). He was wearing his cool steampunky work goggles and tinkering away under the TARDIS console, which was his absolute favorite thing in the universe to do that didn’t involve Rose. He should be having a grand time, but he’d been down here for three hours and forty-one minutes and had been miserable for three hours and thirty-six of them. One thing after another kept complicating his repairs, and it was really annoying him. Two hours and three minutes in, he decided to try Rose’s ten-minute deep breathing exercise that was supposed to help him be more patient. The attempt had been the most boring twelve seconds of his life, and he continued his repairs just as frustrated. 

The Doctor plucked a worn pair of pliers from the tool belt he wore and brought it up to a nest of tangled metallic wires. He carefully snipped a thin, frayed gold one, then swore as a spark hit the back of his hand for the third time in a minute. He drew it back, dropping the pliers and wincing at the metal-on-metal clang reverberating through the small space. Okay, that was it. 

“If you’d just stop fussing, I could get this done faster and then your thermal regulation circuits won’t keep getting tangled!” He yelled. The Doctor felt the TARDIS’ instant and very stubborn response prickle in his mind and groaned. “No I can’t just ‘let them stay tangled,’ and you know it.” That was part of why this repair job was so unpleasant; with the thermal regulation circuits malfunctioning, the air under the console was stuffy and stagnant. 

He and Rose had grown this TARDIS from a tiny piece of coral, the last link he’d ever have to the TARDIS he stole to run away from Gallifrey. She was precious to him in a way that he couldn’t express in words. Donna’s brilliant suggestion about shatterfrying the plasmic shell and such had indeed rapidly accelerated her growth. However, while the TARDIS may have physically been “full grown,” she was a sentient being who was still the equivalent of a child in terms of emotional development. Most of the time, the Doctor and Rose rather liked this; it was like watching their baby grow up. But as every parent knew, there were times when your little darling could drive you mad. 

Wire after wire, cable after cable, the Doctor continued the tedious work of untangling the components that made up the TARDIS’s thermal regulation circuits and adjusting their positioning so they wouldn’t get tangled again. The TARDIS would give him the telepathic equivalent of a whine every time the Doctor hit a particularly challenging snag. 

Twenty minutes later, he was wiping the sweat from his brow when he heard Rose’s panicked voice echoing through the console room, her footsteps heavy and frantic. 

“Doctor! Doctor, what’s wrong?!” She was down the stairs to the repair area in a flash. What’s goin’ on? Are you okay?” He was about to reassure her that he was perfectly well, but she rambled on. “I was just gettin’ ready for bed an’ all of a sudden, a blarin’ mauve alert was throbbin’ in me head, so I ran down here.” Her accent, which had softened over the years, had returned with a vengeance, so he knew she was quite upset. 

The Doctor was bewildered and slightly concerned over Rose’s distress. He hadn’t sent any specific messages through their telepathic link. He took off his heavy tool belt and strode to her side, gripping her upper arms and looking into her eyes. “Rose, look at me. I’m fine. Everything’s fine.” 

Her eyes roamed his body from head to toe and seeing that he really was just fine, she took a deep breath and her whole body relaxed. “I’m glad everything is okay,” she said with a smile. “What was that alert all about, though?” 

The Doctor didn’t even hear her question, because he’d just noticed what she was wearing, which happened to be the gorgeous deep purple negligee he’d gotten her on Fiegra Prime a few days ago. They hadn’t gotten a chance to, um, try it out yet. 

Rose noticed his stare and smirked. “I told you I was getting ready for bed,” she said, her voice dropping to a smoky, seductive murmur. The Doctor smirked right back and leaned in to kiss her, but when their lips were just centimeters apart, he jerked back suddenly. 

“Wait a minute. I didn’t send you the mauve alert.” His eyes widened in understanding and he moved his gaze to the ceiling. “Oh, nice try, girl. Well done. You almost got away with it, too!” He chuckled and shook his head. 

Rose looked at him quizzically. The Doctor tried not to focus on the sheen of sweat that had formed across her chest brought on by the stifling air under the console. “Seems our dear TARDIS had a few ideas about how to get me to stop repairing her thermal regulation circuits,” he told Rose. “She made it really hot in here to try to get me to give up, and when that didn’t work, she tried to distract my by getting you to run in here wearing… that.” He gulped. 

Rose laughed and gazed up at the ceiling herself. “Points for cleverness, but you’ve got to let the Doctor make these repairs, and you know it,” she said in gently chiding tones. The TARDIS hummed petulantly, but Rose then felt something like a resigned sigh come from the time ship. Rose scooped up the tool belt the Doctor had dropped when she came running in. “I’ll help you,” she told him, “and we’ll be done in no time.” 

“Oh, no,” the Doctor said vehemently, pushing her back towards the stairs. “It’ll take twice as long if you stay.” On Rose’s confused look he clarified, “The TARDIS had the right idea. It’s really hot in here and you’re really distracting.” 

Rose rolled her eyes at his saucy wink as she went up the stairs and back to their bedroom to wait for the Doctor. 


End file.
